


Roadtrip at the End of the World

by Medie



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Crossover: Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-05
Updated: 2014-11-05
Packaged: 2018-02-23 15:03:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2551910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cora made it all the way to Colorado from South America with the world getting worse with every step...how can Derek do anything less than go get her?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roadtrip at the End of the World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [qafmaniac](https://archiveofourown.org/users/qafmaniac/gifts).



> My thanks to the mods for being so understanding about the migraine-delay.

The phones go down on a Tuesday afternoon. Cell service has been spotty for weeks, ever since the outbreaks had gotten bad, but they go for what Stiles thinks is probably good about an hour after the text from Cora comes in.

"She made it as far as Colorado." The look Derek gives the phone is pitiful; Stiles can't look at him. It's hell just trying to listen. "She should be safe. Our cousin is the alpha of a pack just outside Boulder. Rachel will look after her."

Stiles throws his own phone onto the coffee table. It's just a glorified paperweight now; fucking useless just like everything else. The clatter of it hitting the table is loud in the quiet of the living room. Everything is quiet now. Noise draws the dead.

"You can't go after her." He turns his head. Derek is still staring at the phone like he can will it back to life. "You can't, Derek. There's probably thousands of corpses between here and Colorado. Even you wouldn't survive a trip like that."

"Maybe." Derek starts to put the phone down, but changes his mind, getting up with it in his hand. He walks toward the window to stare out at the sunny day. It's sickening how beautiful the apocalypse when there are no corpses shuffling down the street.

Stiles puts his feet up on the couch. Derek doesn't say anything else, but he doesn't have to. Stiles knows exactly what the self-sacrificing idiot is thinking.

Cora made it all the way to Colorado from South America with the world getting worse with every step...how can Derek do anything less than go get her?

Self-sacrificing _idiot_.

His hands behind his head, Stiles hangs one leg off the side and looks at his boots. He's going to need a new pair. He's pretty sure he fucked up these with the last swarm that passed through.

He misses sneakers, but you can't crush a walker's head in a pair of Nikes.

"You know we can't just take off, right?" Stiles lets his foot drop and turns his head to watch Derek watch the street. "Bunch of the newbies have their first moon coming up and Scott thinks we've got enough material to start a new section of the wall."

Which isn't the point. There's always going to be something to take care of. There's always going to be new wolves and a new plan to keep the walkers out. Truth is, he doesn't trust their luck. They pulled off a few miracles in the past, but he's pretty sure that miracles died with curly fries and the rest of civilization.

They've kept out the worst of the walkers so far, most of the action has been nearer to the big cities, but that's not going to hold. The last update his Dad got said the coast and the border were overrun with refugees and walkers in one big clusterfuck of death.

It hasn't reached this way yet, but it will. That's inevitable.

Just because people ran for the coast didn't mean they're going to stay there. Especially not if they're bit. The dead go looking for meat and they don't stop until they find it.

It's stupid, but Stiles is pretty sure Beacon Hills would be overrun two seconds after he and Derek left. Okay, maybe not, but who's surprised that his control freak tendencies have gotten like ten times worse since the world ended?

Derek comes to stand over him. "We? You're not going with me, Stiles."

"Hell I'm not," Stiles sits up. "Alpha or no alpha, you wouldn't last five minutes out there without backup. Scott can't go with you, we need at least one alpha in town, and the others—" Allison's about to face her first moon, Erica's pregnant and Boyd's going nowhere, and Derek would kill Jackson three days out. Plus, Jackson's about to break ground on the greenhouses and would probably cry manly tears of frustration (read: heartbreak) if Derek asked him to leave now. "They're needed here. I'm your guy and you know it."

Derek glares at him, but it's half-hearted at best. "I thought you said that we weren't going anywhere."

"I did say that," Stiles says on a sigh. "I also know you. It's your little sister and you'd walk through a swarm of walkers naked if it meant getting to her." He pauses, then points at Derek. "Not a suggestion, by the way."

Derek rolls his eyes, sitting down on the coffee table. "You are not going with me." 

"If I don't go; you don't go." 

Glaring at him, Derek gets up. " _Fine_."

*

They leave just before dawn. There's no real safe time to travel, but safer when you can see them coming. Scott sees them off with coffee and supplies. Allison's on the wall, bow in hand and Erica standing at her side, when they go. 

They both smile and their eyes flash with the headlights on the car. 

Stiles doesn't think he'll ever get used to Allison as a wolf, but it's a damn sight better than the alternative. He slumps down in his seat, mouths at his coffee, and focuses on the road. 

"You know, if you eliminate the part where the dead are walking, this is sorta like old times." Actually, they can probably keep the dead in between all the Hales and Argents that kept crawling out of the grave back in the day. 

Picturing Peter's reaction to that comparison makes Stiles snort coffee up his nose. He covers it by sitting up in his seat, looking out at the figures moving through the woods. Walkers. 

He tightens his grip on his gun, but doesn't bother. Not when he sees Boyd drop out of the trees and tear the heads off two. 

"Patrol's out early."

"Double the build up last night," Derek slows down to watch one of the kids take on a big one in a butcher's apron. "Might be a herd in the area. Scott's going to take a team out this afternoon and check it out." Before Stiles can even try to hide his reaction, Derek looks over. "We can hold off—"

"So you can get bit half a dozen times because you're brooding over Cora?" Stiles snorts. "Like hell. You get ten times crabbier when you're healing up from a bite." 

The light's dim in the car but Derek might actually smirk at that. "Funny. You're about ten times more neurotic when I'm healing up from a bite."

He's not wrong. Stiles is ten times more neurotic when one of the pack has been bitten, even knowing it won't take. He's seen them bitten multiple times. He knows that they won't turn. He has no idea what it is about the walkers that makes them walkers, but whatever it is, werewolves are immune to it. 

Okay, Lydia too, but that's less immunity and more no organism on Earth would take that woman on these days.

Hell, even Peter wouldn't try it now. 

Either way, when one of them is healing from a bite, Stiles is a bundle of nerves. _Especially_ when it's Derek.

"Yeah, well, you'd be neurotic too if you were picturing an alpha form zombie," Stiles grins at the look of disgust he gets from Derek. "Seriously, man, imagine that coming at you and try sleeping at night."

They pass through the outer gate (a glorified blockade) and then Beacon Hills is behind them. Stiles looks back to watch them push the cement blocks back into place. 

God, he hopes he gets to see them again.

*

In a perfect world, it would be a couple days driving and they'd be there. A perfect world would be one without walkers, abandoned cars, and nuclear power plants gone untended. 

There's a hotel just off the interstate the pack claimed around a year ago; one of a few they keep as a home away from home when they have go out on scavenging runs. They keep someone stationed at each one all year around to keep them secure from raiders and walkers alike. At the moment, Malia and Kira are watching this one. 

Malia's out with one of the teams, getting raw materials for Scott's project, but Kira's there so Stiles takes a few minutes to chat with her before following Derek back to their assigned room. It's good to catch up, but his mind's not on it. He almost wanders off mid-sentence.

"So, I think I've worked out a route that won't turn us into our own nightlights," he says, kicking the door shut behind him. One of Allison's sweaters is draped on the chair and he shoves it into his bag. She'll be wanting it when they get back. "I think. Can't be sure. No way to look it up." 

Derek lights the lamp. "Are you still on that nuclear thing?"

"It is not a _thing_ ," Stiles grumbles. "You think somebody thought to power down those things before they were overrun? Think the staff is still there keeping them running? Odds are, they melted down a few months after the shit hit the fan and no way am I accidentally wandering into the backyard of one."

Dropping his bag on his bed, he goes to the window and looks out. The sun's long-since gone down, but it's old habit. Stiles has seen way too many people go down from a bite they should've seen coming.

The moon is high, but not full. He can see about halfway across the yard, but only just. If anything's moving beyond that is out of sight.

"Can't see a damn thing in this light," he grumbles. They need to figure something for the non-lupine section of the pack (dwindling though it is).

Derek comes to stand behind him, a solid presence at his back, looking over his shoulder out the window. "Looks like one by that willow." He hesitates. "Never mind."

"Malia?"

"Yeah."

Stiles huffs a laugh. "Awesome." He turns around strips down to his boxers, dropping onto the bed. He lies there for a few minutes, staring at the ceiling while he listens to Derek get ready to sleep. It's something he's heard every night for over a year now, longer than that really, and it stopped being novel a long time ago and that's what really trips him up. He starts thinking about it, about how long they've been living like this, how long it's been since the first weird reports hit the news and the world fell apart. "You know, it should be weird how well we're handling this."

Finished, Derek blows out the lantern and, with a faint creak, slides into his bed a few seconds later. "Should be?"

"Yeah, should be. The dead are literally walking around, eating people, civilization has pretty much fallen apart, and the weirdest part is how we're sharing a room and I am not freaking out right now." 

It's out before he can stop it and he regrets it as soon as he speaks, but it's out and there's no way Derek can miss it. It breaks all the unspoken words they've lived by since the world fell apart and Stiles just _knows_ this will fuck everything up.

His breath catches in his chest as he counts off the seconds, waiting to see how Derek will answer.

He shouldn't be surprised that the answer is no answer at all. There's silence from across the room and Stiles winces, forcing himself to power through it, "Seriously, though, dude, think about it. How many cities are like corpse-central while Beacon Hills is running pretty much like usual." Not that the town didn't get hit. It has. They've buried more people than Stiles cares to think about, but Beacon Hills is still standing and in better condition than any of the towns they've passed through in the months since. 

He rolls onto his side. He can see the general outline of Derek in the moonlight, hell of a view that it is, but that's all. "I think we probably owe somebody flowers. All the supernatural shit that we went through was like boot camp for the apocalypse."

Derek holds his silence for another few seconds. "Something like that."

Stiles glares at the shadowy outline in front of him. Seriously, he does not get Derek sometimes. It's not like he's missed the part where they've been in each others back pocket since the world went to hell. He's been yanked out of harm's way by Derek so many times now that he expects it no matter what. Sometimes, it's so fucking _obvious_ that Stiles can almost feel Derek's mouth on his..

And then there's this.

Rolling over onto his back, Stiles throws a blanket over himself and closes his eyes.

Whatever.

*

Jammed with abandoned cars, the interstate is slow going. The pack has moved the cars that were useful, cleaned out the ones that weren't, and taken care of what was left of the people in them. 

At points, it's easier to just abandon whatever vehicle they're using and just hoof it. 

Stiles doesn't mind the walking, much, but the cars are the worst. There are no bodies left in them, no walkers to pop up and grab at him through the broken windshields, and that's actually what bother him the most.

Stripped out and abandoned, little more than an obstacle course to slow walkers down, they feel like empty graves. It's fucking morbid, but that's what they are and he starts talking to drown out the whispers of the dead. 

"You know, given the fact that it's Cora, she's probably on her way here." Hell, he wouldn't be surprised to find out she'd left while she was still writing the text. No way for a second Cora would be satisfied with staying in Colorado. Not when she's this close to Derek. Maybe before, but not after the Alpha pack and South America and everything else. 

No way. 

Stiles tries to picture being content living on the other side of the country, away from his father and from Derek.

Yeah, no way in _hell_.

Ahead of him, Derek doesn't acknowledge the comment. He just tips his head back and scents the air. 

"Problem?"

"Maybe."

Stiles slides his bat out of his bag and lets the bag slide to the ground. Frankly, even with the pack safehouses, he's impressed as hell they made it this far. 

He hefts the bat, looking around, readying himself for a fight, but doesn't get the chance. Even before the dead come into view, Derek grabs hold of his jacket and lifts him up and into the air. There's a van smooth sides, no ladder, and Stiles is on top of it before he can blink.

Another blink and Derek's beside him, Stiles' bag in his hand, plastering himself flat to the roof. Stiles doesn't hesitate to do the same, he's long since past arguing when it comes to the dead. You don't argue with the dead. They don't care.

He used to worry about this shit. He'd do just about anything to prove he wasn't weak, that he could keep up, but not now. He's one of the few humans left in the pack. One of the few who hasn't volunteered to take the bite from Scott or Derek and they haven't asked. Neither of them has even tried to give him the same speech. 

They haven't said this is the trade off, but Stiles is okay with it. 

Besides, when he gets a look at the bodies shuffling by, he's perfectly okay with going quiet.

There are dozens of them; a weirdly perfect cross-section of society. There are people in business suits, military uniforms, waitresses, and college students. He even sees a priest and a couple nuns in full habit.

Then there's the ones who look fresh, people he even recognizes, and those are the worst. It's easy to imagine how it happened. He's seen a few camps get overrun by herds too big for the protections they've put up. It might not be inevitable for Beacon Hills, but the odds aren't exactly in their favor.

It happens too many times and he's had to burn too many bodies to ever believe a fairy tale like that. He presses hands against the van's surface, hot in the afternoon sun, but doesn't feel the heat. He's cold to the bone watching dead go by. He pictures them moving through Beacon Hills, sees them tearing into the people there and shivers violently.

Derek's hand comes to rest on his back, stroking slowly back and forth between shoulder blades, and it helps. It anchors him against the panic clawing its way up his throat and gives him the chance to think. 

This is the herd they've been worrying about; this is where those walkers came from. 

Moving silently, Derek inches closer. His hand slips across Stiles' back, holding tight. "Just breathe," he says, barely above a whisper, his breath tickling Stiles' ear. "They'll never get anywhere near home. Malia and Kira will take care of them." 

He's right, Stiles knows that he is, but that doesn't do a damn thing to ease the flood of images in his head. It's the one part of this he can't get used to. No matter how many times he sees them, no matter how many of them he puts down, he can't shake the primal fear that is seeing a corpse walk with their empty eyes and gaping mouths.

He closes his eyes and slows his breathing. He will not panic, he will not panic, he will _not_.

Derek presses his face to Stiles neck, his own breathing slow and steady, warmth of it building against Stiles' skin. It's a comfort and Stiles leans into it, holds on, and matches the pace of his breathing to Derek's. He tries to hear nothing else. He tries to block out the hissing, gurgling sounds all around them, droning like a beehive. 

Tries. 

The sound doesn't end. The herd is big. Bigger than any other he's seen and the sound of them is panic-inducing.

Derek's lips brush his temple, gentle, then his cheek. Stiles turns his head and, before he can speak, he's kissed slow and gently. It's a chaste thing, a reassurance, but not at the same time. It's a promise. The answer to the slip he'd made the night before. There's a restraint in the gesture, the feeling of Derek holding so much back, and that's what really grabs Stiles attention. That's what really pulls his focus from the walkers to the man beside him.

He counts it a small miracle that he waits until the walkers are a distant blur on the horizon before bursting out with, "You have the worst goddamn timing I have ever seen." 

Derek snorts a laugh into Stiles' shoulder. "Probably," he says, his arm tightening around Stiles, "but it was the only thing I could think of. You were about to lose it."

Maybe a little,but hell if Stiles will admit that. He shakes his head, sitting up. "Worst timing in history, Hale. Worst." He looks at down at Derek, smiling and relaxed in the afternoon sun. "But I'm not complaining."

"Yet."

Stiles gets up onto his knees, looking around for any sign of the dead. "Oh, hell yes, there will be actual complaining at some point. You wait until we're on top of a van, surrounded by dozens, maybe hundreds, of walkers and that's when you decide to make a move? The one moment I can't do a damn thing about it?" 

Determining the coast is clear, he jumps to the ground and looks up. "You better hope to hell your sister is on her way to meet us." 

"Why?" Derek jumps down. "Something going to keep me from seeing her?"

"Yeah, me breaking your neck." It's been a long time since they were anything but eye to eye, even longer since he was scrawny, and longer still since he'd ever even think of entertaining the idea. 

Feeling daring, he curls a hand in Derek's shirt and steps closer. He gives him plenty of time to back away, plenty of time to reconsider, and gives himself plenty of time to quiet the voice screaming at him that they're too exposed before he leans in and kisses him again. 

"Seriously, seriously the worst timing in history," he mutters, making himself step back. They've got a lot of ground to cover and another ride to find.

*

It's not hard to find an abandoned car. Not that much harder to find one with gas in the tank. People do stupid things when they panic and, back when these cars were left, there was plenty of panic to go around.

Derek even manages to find a jeep that, if it weren't bright green, would be almost identical to Stiles'. It's the post-apocalyptic equivalent to buying flowers and Derek doesn't even roll his eyes when Stiles jokes about it.

There's nothing melodramatic about the shift in their relationship. If anything, it's more of a settling and an acknowledgment of something that was already there. 

Everyone is going to be absolutely unbearable when they find out and Stiles can't even be annoyed by that. They don't get a lot of reasons to be happy anymore and he'll take whatever ones he can get. 

He wouldn't be driving across country to find Derek's sister otherwise. 

*

The farther they get to Colorado, the more Stiles is reminded of why he hates post-apocalyptic roadtrips. It's not much driving before they're out of the area the pack controls and into areas where safe haven's hard to find. 

The living are as much, if not more, of a threat than the dead. Stopping to help strangers on the side of the road is out of the question. Stiles doesn't even feel guilty about it anymore. It's been too long since things fell apart to trust what you see now. Too many close calls and near misses to trust the panicked young guy next to the beat up datsun. The last big loss they had was to an ambush by a bunch of hunters turned survivalists.

The only stops they make are for provisions and the bathroom. 

Other than that they keep going. Nothing else to stop for.

*

Until they're made to.

Stiles wakes up when the truck stops. Derek is staring straight ahead, not moving, and when Stiles sits up he can see the line of people outside the truck.

Every one of them with golden eyes.

"Tell me these are the wolves we're looking for," he says, rubbing his eyes. 

Derek's answer is a slow smile and his opening of the truck door. He's barely out of the truck before the line of wolves parts to let a woman through. She looks about Derek's age, a little shorter, but with the same dark hair. She looks at him for a long moment before smiling wide and closing the distance between them to hug Derek tightly.

Getting out, Stiles gestures. "I'm going to take a shot in the dark and assume this is Rachel?"

"The one and only," she replies, nodding. "And you must be—"

"Stiles," Cora cuts in. "That's Stiles." She grins at him. Her hair is longer, tied back, but it's Cora. "Say it's good to see you, but—" 

"It's better to see you." And it is, he's glad to see her,but his reaction has nothing on Derek's. Stiles can almost see the fear and worry draining away. Everyone's had to learn how to live with losing people since the dead took the world out from under them, but Derek learned it years before everyone else. 

Stiles would give anything to have some of the people he's lost back; anything but this moment.

He watches Derek hug Cora. He watches him stick close to her through the night, sitting side by side at the fire, at dinner, and then when they bed down for the night. He watches it all because as much as Derek won't let Cora out of his sight, he doesn't let go of Stiles either.

"Finally figured it out, huh?" Cora asks, watching them settle in for the night.

Stiles' answer is to curl himself around Derek. Derek's is to lace their fingers together and say, "Finally admitted it." 

*

They leave before dawn. Goodbyes are said, hugs exchanged,and Rachel sends them off with a fresh car loaded down with provisions. Stiles doesn't think they'll ever see her again, but he doesn't think they won't either. This isn't a world for certainties, not anymore, so he settles for hope. 

Technically, this isn't a world for that either, but he's not going to give up anymore than he has to.

*

"For the record," Cora says, when it's her turn to drive, "if you two start making out, I'm driving us into the first pack of walkers I find."

Stiles looks at Derek and Derek smirks. 

"We have no problem with that." 

"I dunno, dude," Stiles says, "You do have the worst timing known to man. Might not want to risk it."

Derek kisses him over Cora's groan of protest, taking his time with this one before he pulling away to say, "I thought the only thing I had to worry about was you breaking my neck."

"That is still a strong possibility, dude. Epic levels of strong," Stiles says, tugging him in for another kiss

"Oh god," Cora says, hitting the gas, "we are so going to get eaten."


End file.
